


Remind Me I'm Mortal

by CitrusVanille



Category: Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF, Historical RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-03
Updated: 2008-06-03
Packaged: 2019-03-03 01:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13330557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CitrusVanille/pseuds/CitrusVanille
Summary: Alexander has just been to the oracle at Siwa and been declared the son of Zeus-Ammon.





	Remind Me I'm Mortal

**Author's Note:**

> Written because Alexander said the only things that reminded him he was mortal were sleep and sex.

The camp is quiet, most of the men already asleep, exhausted by the march. The sun is long gone, but the heat of the day is still rising in waves from the endless sea of sand, making the stars overhead shimmer and dance.

Alexander sits alone, just beyond the camp’s edge, outside the lights of the watch fires. Lost in the uncomfortable tangle of his thoughts, he doesn’t speak when another man approaches, or give any indication that he is aware of the other’s presence, even when the man sits down beside him.

“How does it feel to be a god?” Hephaistion asks after they have sat in silence for some time.

Alexander turns to face him, eyes dark and unreadable in the starlight. “I feel as I always have.” His voice is almost too soft for emotion as he reaches out a hand, palm up.

Hephaistion takes it without hesitation and doesn’t resist as Alexander guides him first to touch his wrist, then, drawing him closer, the side of his neck.

“What do you feel?” Alexander asks, still holding Hephaistion’s callused fingers to his pulse, the vibrations of his low voice shivering across Hephaistion’s skin.

“Your heartbeat.” His fingers twitch in Alexander’s grasp, gently caressing the smooth skin of his throat, and Alexander’s eyelids flutter almost imperceptibly.

Slowly, Alexander slides Hephaistion’s hand down over his collarbone and inside his _chlamys_ , pressing it flat against his chest, covering it with his own hand. “And now?”

Hephaistion stares for a moment at the place where his wrist disappears under the garment, wrapped with Alexander’s own, then looks up into the other man’s face. “Your heart,” he replies.

“You’ve felt it before. Does it feel any different now?”

“No,” Hephaistion shakes his head – he doesn’t even have to think about it, he knows that rhythm in his sleep.

“Then why should the rest of me have changed?” Alexander releases him, but Hephaistion doesn’t move.

“You have always been a god,” Hephaistion says. “Whether your father is Zeus or Philip, you are a god.”

Alexander frowns at him, shrugging off his hand. “Would you put me on a pedestal?”

“You are Alexander,” Hephaistion replies simply. “You built your own pedestal long ago.”

“And you have never been afraid to knock me down, before.”

Hephaistion reaches out again, and this time he touches Alexander’s face, tracing his brow, cheeks, jaw. “Who says I’m afraid now?” his voice has developed a huskier quality.

Alexander leans almost instinctually into the touch. “If I must be a god, I would have you be a god as well. I could not bear immortality but that you were with me.”

Hephaistion moves closer to brush a light kiss across Alexander’s lips, then another, trying to tease him out of his philosophic mood. “And if I cannot be a god?” he whispers.

Alexander shifts suddenly, and tumbles backwards into the sand, pulling Hephaistion down on top of him. And there, in the starlit desert, thousands of miles and years from home, Hephaistion sees the crooked, boyish grin he hasn’t seen since they had snuck off alone together as youths at Pella and Mieza.

Alexander’s head cocks a bit to one side, as if to balance his lopsided smile. “Then you’ll just have to remind me that I am mortal,” he answers, as if it is the easiest, most natural thing in the world.

And perhaps it is, Hephaistion thinks, but even if it’s not, as long as Alexander is there, he’s up for the challenge.


End file.
